Under Senate Bill 34, Secretary of State Kris Kobach would make violation of advance voting statutes or attempting to vote when not qualified a felony rather than a misdemeanor. It would be a higher-grade felony to vote when not qualified, engage in election tampering or falsely impersonate a voter. The bill will also give prosecutorial power to Kobach.
Micah Kubic, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas, said the proposal could penalize individuals who unintentionally failed to follow the correct process in voting. He said there was potential that nursing home residents with aging minds could get hauled before the court for mistakenly breaking a voting law.
“Voting-related crimes are exceedingly, exceptionally rare, and even then are most often the result of mistakes like voting in one’s old precinct after having moved to a nearby neighborhood, rather than a willful attempt to subvert an election, but if they occur, should be taken seriously," Kubic said.
Read the entire article on the Topeka Capital-Journal from January 30th, 2015.
